Call them the frustrated wannabe sellers — eager to list their homes for sale this spring, but feeling locked out of their markets by severe inventory shortages and rising prices that are occurring in many parts of the country. They want to move. They believe they could sell relatively quickly. But they can’t find affordable, desirable replacements for their current homes because there are fewer to choose from. So they don’t list, thereby contributing to a pernicious cycle that worsens the inventory squeeze.
According to the National Association of Realtors’ latest data, total listings of homes for sale are down by 8.1 percent over the past year alone, and they have fallen year over year for 33 consecutive months. A new study by Trulia.com found that inventories have sunk to their second-lowest level since the company began tracking them in 2012. Meanwhile, prices are up in major segments — median starter homes by 9.6 percent for the year, trade-up homes by a median 7.5 percent.
The wannabes are folks like these:
• David Roberts, a high school teacher in the Nashville, Tenn., area, tells me he’s been looking for months for an affordable replacement for his current home, valued around $188,000. He’s been told his house “would sell in two weeks.” But prices of suitable replacements are rising fast — up 10 percent in the past year — and the pickings are slim anywhere close to the city. “So where do we go?” he asks. “We are looking but not listing.”
• In Walpole, Mass., 76-year-old Michaela Tomaselli wants to sell her four-bedroom ranch house and has “looked at everything” that’s available locally. “But I can’t find a place to go” — what’s out there either costs too much, doesn’t have the single-floor arrangement she needs or isn’t in good condition. “I don’t want to go into a condo,” she says. “I wouldn’t be happy there” after years in a detached home on a 1-acre lot. So she, too, is looking but not listing.
